Abstract

Abstract:

Chonaikai, village associations, offer many reminders of how Japan was governed up to 1945, and for quite some time afterwards. They are, at once, paternal, authoritarian, and personal; their purposes are mutual help and control. They work—so long as conformity can be taken for granted and enforced by community pressure. Chonaikai are based on Shinto. Authentic Buddhism, by contrast, is anti-establish- mentarian. The Aum Shinrikyo cult illustrates this largely forgotten point.

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